Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (George C. Wolfe, 2020)

[ando]

No Ma Rainey's Black Bottom thread?


Viola Davis, (dir.) George C. Wolfe and Chadwick Boseman

First a synopsis then a few thoughts on this stunning piece. It's a George C. Wolfe adaption of the second in the August Wilson cycle of plays covering African American life in the 20th Century. This one is set in 1927 and focuses on a day in the life of a Blues band headed by "The Mother of The Blues", Ma Rainey. On this day the band has gathered for a recording session of a couple of Ma Rainey's signature tunes. The gathering is fraught with tension due to a talented and ambitious horn player, Levee, who not only wants to bring Ma Rainey's signature sound "up to date" but plans to branch out to form his own band. Ma, on the other hand, simply wants to record the music as she always has, get paid and return to her following in The South. Through that conflict we see the hopes and dreams of what is the prototypical African-American version of the American Dream disintegrate.

What bugs me are the complaints about Wolfe's version being too insular and needing more backstory for some of the minor characters. Well, that isn't Wilson's play. Nor, do I believe, would it open up the story to a necessarily larger dimension. In fact, showing more of the environs of Chicago might have weakened the drive of the narrative. After all, Levee is headed for an emotional cliff that Ma, knowingly or not, is pushing him to. In fact, all the forces in the play are driving Levee to the devastating end and the only witnesses he has are the audience. Part of Wilson's point about Levee, like many a black musician/man in the early 20th century (and even now, to be frank), is that people around him don't really see him - or worse, don't want to see him. And if they do take his music it's in a homogenized form for which he'll get little, if any, credit. I hadn't thought about it til now but the naming of Levee is also apropos in an American South context as (the ones in New Orleans, anyway) seem to always give way in a particularly bad storm. Levee never really had a chance. It's Wolfe and company's 94 minute version of The Blues. Wilson would probably be pleased.

The cast is uniformly good. The late Chadwick Boseman is excellent (wish I had seen Charles Dutton, the Broadway originator, in the role) even though it's nearly impossible to like him. But Viola Davis' Ma isn't easy to cuddle up to, either. Part of their dynamism is the fact that anyone getting too close could get badly burned. When they're performing they're incredibly magnetic but in real life negotiation they're nearly insufferable. It's a successful performing artist's predicament, particularly dynamos like these, who are either attempting to break through or remain on top; which is another great insight that the (play and) film conveys. And these two heavyweights deliver admirably.

[domino harvey]

I found this a mixed bag that never gelled for me, though Boseman is by far the best thing here, regardless of my problems with where the script and presumably the source lead him. Ma Rainey may be in the title, but the titular song is really more about the recurrent theme of capitulation in its dueling versions than the singer anyways, and I found Viola Davis rather uninteresting and one-note in her hamminess. She's thankfully barely in the movie though-- assuming she wins, surely this will be the shortest Best Actress win (I know Eleanor Parker has the shortest nom wrapped up for Detective Story), but I truly hope she does not prevail. I'd be all for a Boseman win though. I can't say I was impressed with him in the slightest in Black Panther but he has real verve and lends authentic bravado to his part here. I wasn't surprised to hear this was an early play from Wilson, as the dramatics are all over the place, and the schizophrenic sharp turns in the dialogue from goofin' to Serious Monologues were jarring and not in a narratively useful fashion. I'd have much rather just watched 94 minutes of the band butting heads and clowning each other rather than suffer through all the false dramatics imparted on their more entertaining and engaging interactions. Supporting noms for any of the band members would also be more than welcome. Much less welcome here is the crutch of far too many playwrights who write themselves into a corner and can only use

Spoiler

a sudden death

to find artificial closure-- especially since in this film it realllly comes off as flop sweat of needing to wrap everything up into some kind of Meaning. So, marginal thumbs down, but prob still worth seeing for the perfs of Ma Rainey's back up band

[ando]

I found this a mixed bag that never gelled for me, though useful fashion... I'd have much rather just watched 94 minutes of the band butting heads and clowning each other rather than suffer through all the false dramatics imparted on their more entertaining and engaging interactions.

To which dramatics do you refer? What precisely is false about them?

[Never Cursed]

What I thought was most ridiculous about the ending was how

Spoiler

it essentially had happened already with the "Cutler's God" fight. If Wilson really wanted this type of ending, why not have it occur as the result of that earlier conflict? It's more meaningful than the "you stepped on my shoe" contrivance (and I get what the Significance of that is, but still) and it actually involves the band member with whom Levee had been fighting the most.

I can't even share a lot of your praise for the film, domino, as I honestly didn't much like Boseman here and thought the other three bandmembers did more interesting things than him with far less material (though I may be biased given that I have predisposed notions towards all of them for their HBO work).

[domino harvey]

I found this a mixed bag that never gelled for me, though useful fashion... I'd have much rather just watched 94 minutes of the band butting heads and clowning each other rather than suffer through all the false dramatics imparted on their more entertaining and engaging interactions.

To which dramatics do you refer? What precisely is false about them?

I just outlined them in the post you quoted. If you find that finale earned and organic to the rest of the material, then great, bully for you

[ando]

Spoiler

Levee bullied Toledo from the jump.

Not deep.

[domino harvey]

No, that’s not deep, but also not all of what is going on

Spoiler

We see that for all his huffing and puffing, Boseman’s character is ultimately unable to actually do what either his father or Davis’ character do, which is stand up to and/or attack the white characters oppressing them. Thus after being rebuffed by the producer, he instead lashes out in the most cowardly way possible against the weakest member of the band, a fellow black man, furthering a cycle that’s still occurring in many ways. I get that on paper this should work, but I don’t buy the leap in Boseman’s character as written or relayed by the narrative. And I see your reading of it as an additional act of bullying that suddenly goes from 0 to Homicide vastly less interesting than the flawed approach I read it as attempting, so I’m afraid I don’t see how that’s a defense either

[Shrew]

Agreed with most of Domino's take except I liked Davis fine and would give it a shaky thumbs up, perhaps more a 45-degree incline thumb. The ending disappointed me too, though I'm not sure it's totally the fault of the source material.

Spoiler

For as great as Boseman is here, I do wonder if the ending would have come off if he had played the character with an edge of menace, at least in his interactions with Toledo. There's a good deal of angry young man in the performance, but it never gets near "murderous" except in the fight with Cutler about God that Nevercursed mentioned. And THAT feels like a long simmering feud hitting a boil, but it feels like Wolfe (or maybe Wilson) figured that was foreshadowing enough for the ending.

It maybe could have also worked if more weight were given to Levee and Toledo's interactions, which get buried in the rest of the (excellent) interplay among the band. It does seem like someone tried to force a connection in a really awkward terrible edit--after Levee's big monologue about his parents, we suddenly cut to a close-up of Toledo apparently soliloquizing (at least it looks to be shot on a darkened sound stage). Feels like that got shoehorned in from elsewhere in the play or a monologue dropped in from an old draft. It maybe could have worked with stagecraft (lights dim on the rest of the band as they shuffle off stage, spotlight on Toledo, etc), but it was a weird comedown from one of the film's high points.

I've got the play on hold from the library, so I'll be interested to see what if anything was changed or stressed differently. I'm glad Netflix is committed to realizing Washington's dream of adapting the whole Pittsburgh cycle, but I do help they get some cinematic-minded directors on board for some of these.

[ando]

No, that’s not deep, but also not all of what is going on

Spoiler

We see that for all his huffing and puffing, Boseman’s character is ultimately unable to actually do what either his father or Davis’ character do, which is stand up to and/or attack the white characters oppressing them. Thus after being rebuffed by the producer, he instead lashes out in the most cowardly way possible against the weakest member of the band, a fellow black man, furthering a cycle that’s still occurring in many ways. I get that on paper this should work, but I don’t buy the leap in Boseman’s character as written or relayed by the narrative. And I see your reading of it as an additional act of bullying that suddenly goes from 0 to Homicide vastly less interesting than the flawed approach I read it as attempting, so I’m afraid I don’t see how that’s a defense either

There's no need to defend anything against a fundamental misreading. Levee's (Boeman's character) intention is not to "stand up to the white man". That's not an intention anyone can play, that's an attitude. Levee's intention is to establish himself as his own man, something, as you say, his father or Ma is able to do. What Levee sees as threats to that establishment draws him into conflict, whereas with a character like Ma they would simply be challenges to overcome or circumvented. It's a portrait of two black artists taking two different approaches to negotiating their worlds.

[L.A.]

Will these films distributed by Amazon Prime and Netflix get physical releases?

[domino harvey]

No, that’s not deep, but also not all of what is going on

Spoiler

We see that for all his huffing and puffing, Boseman’s character is ultimately unable to actually do what either his father or Davis’ character do, which is stand up to and/or attack the white characters oppressing them. Thus after being rebuffed by the producer, he instead lashes out in the most cowardly way possible against the weakest member of the band, a fellow black man, furthering a cycle that’s still occurring in many ways. I get that on paper this should work, but I don’t buy the leap in Boseman’s character as written or relayed by the narrative. And I see your reading of it as an additional act of bullying that suddenly goes from 0 to Homicide vastly less interesting than the flawed approach I read it as attempting, so I’m afraid I don’t see how that’s a defense either

There's no need to defend anything against a fundamental misreading. Levee's (Boeman's character) intention is not to "stand up to the white man". That's not an intention anyone can play, that's an attitude. Levee's intention is to establish himself as his own man, something, as you say, his father or Ma is able to do. What Levee sees as threats to that establishment draws him into conflict, whereas with a character like Ma they would simply be challenges to overcome or circumvented. It's a portrait of two black artists taking two different approaches to negotiating their worlds.

I find it amusing that you remove the basic driving focus of the film, which is the conflict between capitulating vs pushing back against white oppression, from your reading and then accuse me of fundamentally misreading the work

[starmanof51]

This played rather better for me on a second viewing

Spoiler

when you know what's coming. Levee's doomed nature and self-damaging impulses seem much clearer, and the violence against Cutler earlier seems rather more serious. We really only know him for an afternoon or so, and even if his last action hadn't happened, what we saw of him made it seem like that was the sort of thing that could well happen to him some other day. If it wasn't Toledo, right then, then someone else later is not shocking. And presumably to someone on his "level" or lower.

[Shrew]

Having now read the source play and revisited (parts of) the film, I'm much more confident that the screenplay and directorial choices are at fault for the blind-siding ending. But I admit that might just be due to reading the play knowing what's coming. Some observations:

• The film cuts several arguments between Toledo and Levee, including an initial fight about how to spell music that establishes sharper edges to both their characters and their antagonism.
• Levee's big monologue is the end of Act 1--the Toledo monologue the film awkwardly inserts right after comes earlier in the play, from a--yep, again--cut argument between Levee and Toledo.
• Cutler comes across as a much bigger presence on screen than on the page. This is partially because Toledo and Slow Drag have more of their dialogue cut, but also because Wolfe seems to favor the character in his editing. More of Cutler's lines seem to be shown in close-ups or with Cutler in the foreground, while Toledo's are often delivered in ensemble shots. During Levee's big monologue, the eyelines all make it seem as though Levee is addressing Cutler, not Toledo, who started him off by teasing him. This all gives the feeling that Cutler/Levee is the main conflict and that the "Cutler's god" fight is the natural climax of the film. The film also cuts a back and forth Cutler has with Slow Drag and Toledo, which makes clear he's got a chip on his shoulder with everybody, not just Levee.
• There's a whole paragraph of stage directions building up the climactic act. The film opts for a split second surprise.
• The dialogueless scenes of Ma Rainey cut in throughout are obviously additions to the film. They mostly don't bother me, but the final cutaway to Ma Rainey in the car is a bad, distracting choice.
• The film's very final pre-credit sequence isn't in the play and is a great cinematic gut punch, easily the best choice the film makes. However, the stage directions have the play end with the sound of a muted, tortured trumpet, which seems awkwardly translated into a... medium shot of a muted trumpet in the big band. Meanwhile, the actual denouement just prior gets some bland strings and piano.

[therewillbeblus]

I didn't like this much either, but actually thought the themes behind the ending were earned, although it played out way too sloppily for me.

Spoiler

I disagree that culminating the violent act as a result of the "Cutler's God" argument would have made more sense- it would have indicated a level of premeditation on Levee's character to actually engage in violence, which he's only able to actualize impulsively outside of targeted rationalization, as a product of blinded emotional dysregulation. However the "Cutler's God" argument is critical to understanding why that final murder works. Boseman rejects an intangible presence of God due to evidence of an omission of protection from his traumatic history, and he's been deluding himself ever since on a path away from all collectivist institutions that offer a sense of belongingness (religion, the band, his culture), aiming instead towards individualization rooted entirely in self-will, but contingent on expectations regardless. He's refused to "give it up to God" and practice humility for long enough to feel a false sense of security in his forged "self-empowered" identity, but has still not deprived himself from the expectations that he and others place upon God (unbeknownst to himself), alternatively directing these expectations away from harmonious spirituality and towards the white-driven systems that rule society. So when he is somehow surprised that the oppressive systems don't reward his self-will in the exact ways he expected them to, we (and perhaps he) realize that he's been pretending to believe in himself as his own God when he's actually subconsciously, yet willfully, given this power to these racist institutions that oppress him directly.

In this way his self-deception is clear and, whether because he's now been stripped of all three hosts he's attempted to create a God relationship with (higher power, self, capitalist systems), or because he arguably made the least-informed pick of the litter by choosing to believe in a thoroughly-evidenced unjust and untrustworthy corporeal diety, he breaks down in total crisis. I don't buy the way that final scene plays out and think the film would be much more successful if the violence occurred more quickly and recklessly after the shoe-step. However, psychologically and thematically it's fitting that it's prompted by a small gesture at this exact moment in the narrative -as Boseman's own delusional narrative of his life is breaking apart- particularly to the theme of: How does a black person find meaning and hope in a society where trust is fragile from all angles, beyond socio-political systems but also trust in God and oneself. If anything, I came away from this film understanding a bit deeper (as much as a white person can "understand") why oppressed populations turn to religious institutions and God when it's the least directly-severe force impeding one's ability to improve their quality of life.

This is a bitingly cynical film, I just wish it were better (and, while fine in the part, I'm not convinced Boseman would have even been nominated if he was still living).

[ando]

No, that’s not deep, but also not all of what is going on

Spoiler

We see that for all his huffing and puffing, Boseman’s character is ultimately unable to actually do what either his father or Davis’ character do, which is stand up to and/or attack the white characters oppressing them. Thus after being rebuffed by the producer, he instead lashes out in the most cowardly way possible against the weakest member of the band, a fellow black man, furthering a cycle that’s still occurring in many ways. I get that on paper this should work, but I don’t buy the leap in Boseman’s character as written or relayed by the narrative. And I see your reading of it as an additional act of bullying that suddenly goes from 0 to Homicide vastly less interesting than the flawed approach I read it as attempting, so I’m afraid I don’t see how that’s a defense either

There's no need to defend anything against a fundamental misreading. Levee's (Boeman's character) intention is not to "stand up to the white man". That's not an intention anyone can play, that's an attitude. Levee's intention is to establish himself as his own man, something, as you say, his father or Ma is able to do. What Levee sees as threats to that establishment draws him into conflict, whereas with a character like Ma they would simply be challenges to overcome or circumvented. It's a portrait of two black artists taking two different approaches to negotiating their worlds.

I find it amusing that you remove the basic driving focus of the film, which is the conflict between capitulating vs pushing back against white oppression, from your reading and then accuse me of fundamentally misreading the work

That is not the basic driving focus of the film.